Writing Jobs From Home: Make Money Doing What You Love!

Waking up at 7AM, downing three cups of coffee, sitting in two hours of traffic, and then spending the rest of your day sitting in a cubicle before doing it all again the next day can get extremely tiring. Wouldn’t it be great if you could create your own schedule, work from the comfort of your own home and never have to wear a suit to the office again? So many people hate their day jobs but don’t know how to create an equal income from home. Luckily, there are tons of resources out there to help people do just that. If you’ve got a knack for the English language, there are plenty of writing jobs from home that will make you a decent income.

If you’re eager to get started, jump on over to Udemy’s course on making money as a freelancer and see just how lucrative this business can be!

Blogging

Perhaps the most obvious one, blogging can be a huge source of income if done right. If you choose this path, it’s important to choose a niche topic that you have a lot of knowledge about, get your own domain name (this can be done through many popular blogging platforms), and learn as much as you can about SEO (but don’t overdo it). It’s especially important to find a good middle ground. Ads and affiliate marketing can be an easy way to generate some extra income, but you don’t want to have too many – this can dissuade readers from returning to your site. If you’re passionate about something, start blogging about it! Post your blog on all of your social media sites, have your friends and family do the same, and you can begin to generate a following.

Real Estate Writing

When looking to buy a new house, you search around on the internet and read about properties, right? Many times realtors don’t have the time to write about each house on the market, so they hand off that job to freelancers. New properties are always going up on the market, so there’s a constant stream of work to be had. You’ll write elaborate descriptions on both houses and other properties for sale in order to attract buyers.

Greeting Cards

Large greeting card companies know how to market themselves, but they often look outside of the company for people who have a way with words. Freelance writers who are able to take a topic and create a few witty sentences about it are always needed for new greeting card text. Whether it be about love, birthdays or bridal showers, you’ll need to know how to keep it short, sweet and clever.

Personal Correspondences

Do you think every big executive has time to answer all of their emails? Probably not. If you are able to write professionally, you may be hired as a virtual assistant – which could mean you’re doing anything from online research to database updating to answering emails. Sending out a company-wide email about a big meeting coming up, writing thank you notes, and putting together a business presentation can all be done virtually these days. Before sending out really important correspondences, make sure to send off a draft to your client to ensure that you’ve responded in an appropriate way.

Web Content Writer

In order for a company to market themselves, they’re going to need web content. By hiring freelance writers to create this content, the company has less full-time employees to deal with. This content could be anything from blog posts to monthly newsletters to a description of the overall goal of the company themselves. They give you the guidelines, and you make the text interesting to readers. Depending on the company you’re writing for, a lot of times you may be given a topic and then free creative control to create the final post. There are also plenty of independent blogs who are always looking for a fresh take on the subject they focus on. Find a couple of websites that interest you, and shoot an email off to the creator or editor of that website! A lot of times they won’t post that they’re looking for writers but they’ll appreciate you reaching out to them.

Technical Writing

Being a technical writer could mean you’re writing anything from how-to manuals to reference materials. If you choose to go this route, a background in technical terminology is especially helpful. It will be your job to take complicated terms and translate them in a way that most people can understand them. You may be responsible for creating text for advertisements, marketing brochures, instructions on how to use a particular product or company policies. Since technology is constantly changing, you may need to return to text you have written in the past and update it or create a completely new version of it.

Copywriting

Copywriting doesn’t have anything to do with ‘copyright’ – copywriters create text that is used to sell something, whether it be a product, a service or a company. Copywriting is a fairly broad career path; you could be doing anything from writing marketing material to writing people’s speeches. You may also be called upon to write press releases, an ‘about’ section on a company website or a White Paper. As a copywriter, you won’t have a lot of creative opportunities, and you usually don’t get to choose the subject you’re writing about – although it can pay a decent amount of money.

Medical Writing

As a medical writer, you could be writing for textbooks, healthcare websites or marketing brochures. The subjects can range from extremely scientific and in-depth to general medical knowledge, but you should have at least a slight grasp on the medical industry before diving into this career.

Editing

Do you love the English language but don’t want to spend your days writing article after article? There’s as much of a need for proofreaders as there is for writers. Authors of textbooks, eBooks and print novels are always looking for people who have a knack for grammar to look over what is already written and improve on it.

Freelance Writing

Seems obvious, right? After all, that’s what I’ve been talking about this entire time. The truth is that there are so many opportunities for freelance writers. There are plenty of bloggers and eBook authors who are looking for ghostwriters (writing text for someone else that they put their name on), as well as blogs who are looking for guest posts from people with already established blogs. Hey, while you’re at it, you could even write your own eBook! Even searching around on ‘auction’ sites such as oDesk and Elance can get you good gigs (although you’ll need to weed through all the people who want to pay $1 for a 1000 word article – which is unfortunately a lot of them).

Write What You Know

If you’ve spent your days creating recipes and all of the sudden decide you want to become a medical writer, chances are you won’t succeed overnight. While I’m not saying you should never write about a subject you aren’t knowledgeable in, you should start building your career with subjects that you know you can write about. Once you have established yourself as a great writer and have a portfolio to prove it, you can branch out onto other topics and more difficult assignments. You need to start somewhere! It’s easier to dip your toes in the water than to dive in headfirst without knowing how deep it is.

Ready to start making money from your own home? Even if you don’t have any experience with freelance writing, it’s not a difficult field to get into. Get some helpful pointers on where to start with Udemy’s course on breaking into freelance writing!